Cotton pickers typically have picker bars with a number of uniformly spaced spindles orientated vertically in a straight line. The spindles project into the plant row and are rotated to remove cotton from the plants. The rearward velocity of the spindles is synchronized with the forward speed of harvester to generally provide zero relative velocity between the spindles and the cotton plants. To help assure contact with cotton bolls intermediate adjacent spindles, scrapping plates are placed adjacent the spindles in the picking zone to slow the intermediate bolls and force them into contact with the next spindles. Scrapping plates of the type described in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,591,597 contain pockets of a common profile aligned in a single straight line to conform properly to the straight line picker bar design. The intermediate bolls are forced into contact with the spindles so those bolls are not left on the plant. Picking efficiency is increased without inhibiting plant movement through the picking zone so that harvest speed can be maintained for good machine productivity.
Recently, cotton picker bars have been developed that include spindles oriented at an angle to each other rather than spaced in a straight line. Such a bar is described, for example, in copending and commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/241,748 entitled Offset Spindle Cotton Picker Bar, filed 30 Sep. 2008. In another copending and commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/058,150 entitled High Density Cotton Picker Bar and Spindle Assembly Therefor, filed 15 Feb. 2005, a picker bar is described having sets of spindles which are non-aligned in the vertical direction so that spindles density can be increased. The path of travel of the spindle, or spindle tip path profile, is different for the leading spindles compared to the lagging spindles on a non-aligned spindle type of bar. Use of prior art style scrapping plates wherein pockets are of equal size and of uniform position results in less than optimum picking performance with such non-conventional spindle bars. The prior art scrapping plate must be centered between the two spindle paths, which results in excessive distances between the leading or lagging spindle path and the respective lagging and leading surfaces of the pockets. Decreased picking performance results because the increased distance between the spindle and the plate correlates to decreased proximity between the cotton boll and the picking spindle.